Customer Relationship Management for Small- and Midsized Businesses in Austria. A focus on CRM On Premise vs. CRM On Demand with mobile extension

Table of contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

Introduction

Part I – The Overview
1.1 The Definition of CRM
1.2 The Processes of Customer Relationship Management
1.2.1 Sales Force Automation
1.2.2 Enterprise Marketing Management
1.2.3 Partner Relationship Management
1.2.4 Customer Interaction Center
1.2.5 Field Service
1.3 Influences of Customer Relationship Management on a Business Strategy
1.3.1 The Benefits of Customer Relationship Management
1.3.2 Problems and barriers occurring with Customer Relationship management
1.4 The small and midsized company - CRM Market in Austria
1.4.1 The early adopters of mobile CRM
1.4.2 Consequences for further proceeding

Part II – THE APPLICATION SELECTION
2.1 The CRM market
2.2 CRM Business Application Vendors in Austria
2.2.1 Market Consolidations
2.2.2 Supplier Selection
2.3 CRM Solutions Provider for on premise / onsite strategy
2.3.1 Sage plc’s ACT!2005
2.3.2 Onyx Software Corporation’s Onyx Enterprise CRM V 5.0
2.3.3 SAP AG’s MySAP All-In-One CRM
2.4 CRM on demand
2.4.1 The evolution of hosted CRM
2.4.2 The Key Challenges when using Hosted CRM
2.5 CRM Solutions Provider for on demand / offsite strategy
2.5.1 Salesforce.com
2.5.2 Sage Plc Mid-Market Edition
2.5.3 Siebel CRM OnDemand
2.6 Summary of software-costs for onsite vs. offsite CRM
2.7 On Demand vs. On Premise

Part III – The Technologies for mobile Integration
3.1 Mobile Integration – supporting Sales People and Field Service Worker
3.1.1 The benefits of mobile CRM,
3.1.3 Characteristics of mobile applications
3.2 The technologies for offering mobileCRM
3.2.1 Wireless Devices
3.3 Mobile Connectivity in Austria
3.3.1 Cost for Mobile Data Transfer
3.3.2 Summary of Costs for mobile data-transfer

Part IV – Conclusion & Future Outlook

Bibliography

Appendix of figures

List of Figures

Figure 1.1: Strategy-Centric CRM

Figure 1.2: CRM Applications

Figure 1.3.1: Benefits of a CRM Strategy

Figure 1.3.2: Top Ten causes of CRM failure

Figure 2.2.2: Total Worldwide CRM Revenues

Figure 2.4.1: Would Your Company Consider Using CRM Delivered As a Service When You Seek a CRM Solution?

Table 2.4.1 b: Core Technologies still highly regarded

Figure 2.4.3: Benefits of Hosted CRM

Figure 3.1a: “What benefits do you attribute to the use of wireless devices?”

Figure 3.1b: The mobile Sales Value Framework

List of Tables

Table 1.2.2: Comparison EMA vs. EMM

Table 2.1: Providers and CRM Solutions by Company-Size

Table 2.4.1 a: SMB CRM-User Survey Results: Usability

Table 2.5.1: Pricing of Salesforce

Table 2.6: Summary of software costs

Table 2.7: Tradeoffs between Hosted vs. Licensed CRM

Table 3.3.1.1: A1 Business Models

Table 3.3.1.2: T-Mobile Business Models

Table 3.3.1.3: One Business Models

Table 3.3.1.4: Hutchison 3G Austria Business Models

Table 3.3.2: Summary of Costs

Introduction

Foreword

The reason why I chose this topic for my thesis is mainly because of the fact that I have been working as a Consultant for a software company where my main responsibilities are focused on implementing CRM Solutions for small and medium sized companies in Austria. My experiences in this segment were influenced by the meetings with vendors of such solutions as well as during the planning, implementing and service phases with the customer. The projects I have been involved and the studying of news-related articles, websites and magazines in this market strengthened my opinion that Customer Relationship Management has raised a lot of attention amongst the business world in recent years. Not only the hype – but also problems that occurred with Customer Relationship Management forced companies to re-think their methodology and business strategy.

Analysts and business men are still aware of the power and growing importance of CRM technology. Companies are adopting the benefits of 360-degree view into their organization that is used to gain higher return on investment of marketing-campaigns and to handle more effectively and efficient customer service. The productivity and value of CRM solutions is steadily increasing because of the influence of the Internet and the possibilities for mobile office integration. The new approach to define CRM not as a single software tool but moreover as perhaps one of the most important keys to support and redesign a company’s business strategy is showing the shift from traditional software to CRM for the 21st century. On demand services and wireless integration makes the current state-of-the-art solutions scalable, easier to adopt and offer affordable utilities to realize also the visions of small and medium sized companies.

Problem Definition

The need for accurate, fast and flexible customer- and other business relationship-related information is a vital criterion to every competing business unit in the economy – the main target group for this information can be divided into sales people and field service workers. Although one has to evaluate if the costs arising with such a mobile CRM-Initiative are entitled in the relation to its benefits especially for companies that are not enterprise-sized. Moreover one has to look at the current available technologies in combination with connectivity of wireless devices and the underlying software solution supporting mobile customer relationship management.

Companies willing to integrate CRM – Solutions into their business processes have to make sure that the results reach at least the level they expected them to be, but the problem, specially for a successful CRM strategy, is the fact that a lot of effort in terms of vendor- and product - research, technology-know how and forecasting abilities is necessary to guarantee a long lasting strategy life-cycle.

CRM in its basic definition is still at the early part of the maturation process but it is evolving because of the shift in the focus from automation to analytical functionality which means that it is no longer only a sales- or marketing tool it is also in favour of service – based processes. These circumstances make it even harder for companies who where not dealing with CRM at all, to keep the full control over such an implementation project.

From its tradition, vendors and analysts are often looking at the small and mid-market in the same way they look at the enterprise-sized market, without any further segmentation. This makes it crucial for companies to work out not only software functionality but also to look at the business-strategy of the vendors in order to identify its position in the CRM market.

Questions for limiting the topic of CRM within this thesis

The main questions that came up during my studies and which will be used for my thesis can be summarized as follows:

Question 1: Which functionalities should a CRM system provide in general in order to support human interactions in business relationships and should be taken into consideration from small or midsized companies when selecting a CRM application?

Question 2: Which technical solutions are currently available on the market and what are their main differences?

Question 3: How is the market of CRM solution providers structured for small to midsized companies?

Question 4: How can the improvement potential in processes for Sales People and Field Service Workers be increased through mobile CRM?

Objective Definition

This feasibility study works out the different options for implementing a CRM-Application with mobile integration into small and midsized companies in Austria.

Since the mobile CRM market in Austria is still in its very infancy and not much developed stage, it is hard to find adequate sources of information or case-studies that could be used from companies who are evaluating such CRM systems. The results of this thesis should help to gain a level of know-how in this area from which on one can start to evaluate CRM-solutions by already knowing the basics of this topic as well as having a sound overview about state-of-the-art CRM functionalities, its technological possibilities and reaching awareness of possible barriers and crucial factors among SMB’s in Austria.

Besides the fact that there are a lot of articles, analyses, surveys, reports and evaluations around the topic of CRM, there is no single definition or limitation and no coherent concept or one final description of customer relationship management. This shortfall of a global valid definition still leads to a lot of misconceptions. A lot of business-units in the small- to midsized segments believe that it is enough just to implement any CRM-solution in order to solve problems with business relationships. But in fact a total software-driven business strategy is dangerous in terms of loosing creativity and individuality with reference to the customer base. This is why the questions mentioned in the section above should help to increase the understanding of CRM not only as a technological interface but also in order to overcome barriers with business relations by combining human interaction, organisational management and technology.

Methodology

This thesis is divided into 4 main parts. In order to answer the questions set in the problem definition, the author is going to cover all needed aspects and factors starting with the basic information and definitions of CRM, which are then used to work out and evaluate the important and crucial features of such solutions by referring to and imitating on primary literature of this topic. The introduction into CRM will not be as extensive, since there is already enough basic literature available and this is also not the core objective of this thesis to create another point of view of the history and evolution of CRM. The main subject of the first part of this thesis will be to identify the competencies such a solution should provide in order to guarantee a solid know-how for the further proceedings and analysis that will be undertaken in part II and part III of this thesis.

The second part of this thesis will go deeper into the topic of different types of software solutions and will provide the reader with essential information, in order to find out the main criteria influencing SMB’s decision on which strategy to follow and finally implement. Since the first chapter dealt more with general information, the second one will focus on aspects relevant for the Austrian market. This part of the thesis will explain the differences between CRM on-premise and CRM on-demand by describing and comparing 3 software-solutions out of both segments in terms of their basic structure, their business-strategy and costs for licensing or accessing the hosted application.

The third part will cover the reasons why companies should try to implement mobile access applications to their CRM-system since this is already almost vital for a lot of business-branches if the company is subject of a highly competitive market. Furthermore this part is going to work out the cost and product-range differences of Austrian telecommunications providers in the sector of offering equipment for mobile data transfer which is necessary to exchange data and information between mobile devices and the company’s customer relationship management system.

Since the questions defined relate to each other, the fourth part of this thesis will summarize the findings of the previous parts and state conclusions with reference to create attempts to solve the questions marked in the problem definition.

Part I – The Overview

1. Introduction to Customer Relationship Management

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has, - as every economic strategy or business theorie, a history and an extensive body of experiences. But besides these equalnesses to other theories, CRM has perhaps also been amongst the most disputed tools in the world of sales and marketing people ever. The reason for this is a significant literature on its failures^[1], its success-stories, but also on its definitions. There is no exact date where one could say that CRM has been “invented” and therefore also proper defined. Moreover one can say that CRM is part of a stage in the evolution of the business universe, which also partly explains why as often as the perception of CRM shifted, also its definitions got adopted and redefined. But the second and more important reason for the huge variety of CRM definitions is the simple fact that every single CRM software vendor and every single company using CRM is trying to differentiate itself from its competitors. These circumstances lead to the result, that also the definitions of CRM are slightly different defined. In the early stages of CRM it was simply defined as software-technology to support the interaction with customers – which also was one of the reasons why it was sold as a technology initiative. These understandings of CRM led to the result that in 2002 the problems with CRM implementations had a failure rate of 70 percent, as stated in a 2002 Butler Group Report.^[2] Another report made by Gartner in 2001 found that approximately 55 percent of all CRM projects failed to meet software customers’ expectations.^{[3] [4]}

From 2002 onwards until 2005 the discussion of CRM was a constant topic in the economy which itself had a turbulent time. Ad Nederlof, CEO of Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, stated in an Aberdeen Group interview in 2003 “CRM is a term that can refer to a range of things from the ‘management of the relationship with customers’ all the way to ‘the software and hardware that allow one to manage [his or her] relationship with a customer’. It has become a catchcall term. CRM generally is an enterprise-focused endeavour encompassing all departments in a business. For example, in addition to customer service, CRM would also include operations - manufacturing, assembly, product testing – as well as other areas like purchasing, billing, HR, engineering, marketing and sales. When the full company spectrum of departments is focused on building, maintaining, and constantly improving not only the product but also the relationship with the customer, this is what is meant by CRM. This requires a deep look at the goals and objects of the entire business and how those goals at the executive level are carried out in the sublevels of management and employees. In order to understand how goals get accomplished, it is necessary to revisit the way companies get their business done. Once a baseline is determined, they must determine if the way they do their processes makes sense in the current business climate. If not, then they need to be redesigned to be more customer-centric. It is a step most businesses do not do before buying CRM software and are then surprised that they did not get the ROI they wanted after they implemented it”.^[5] This statement is very helpful to describe the change from the data-driven technological point of view^[6] of CRM to the process driven business strategy^[7], which relates to the current perception of CRM initiatives.

1.1 The Definition of CRM

Nowadays CRM is more seen as a business strategy then as a software technology, and it should help to map the transformation of business processes of a business culture to deliver customer value and extracting business value simultaneously.

As a conclusion of the previous brief introduction to customer relationship management, the definition of CRM made by Paul Greenberg^[8] summarizes the current strategy-centric definitions of CRM up:

“CRM is a philosophy and a business strategy, supported by a system and a technology, designed to improve human interactions in a business environment”

Following this definition which is coherent to statements of other CRM-Specialists it is important to stress the change of CRM in the last2 years. After the transformation from a customer-centric strategy to a customer eco-system^[9], CRM is morphing towards a philosophy which is affecting the whole business plan of a company. It no longer deals only with customers, it is integrated into the whole value chain of a company. In order to illustrate the relation between strategy, technology and human interactions the author of this thesis combines them into a graphical overview:

Figure 1.1: Strategy-Centric CRM

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

(Source: in imitation on B. Flach, 2004, p.6)

1.2 The Processes of Customer Relationship Management

A state-of-the-art CRM system can be split into different processes like Sales Force Automation, Enterprise Marketing Management, Partner Relationship Management, Customer Interaction Center and Field Services. Although all of these modules can be seen separately, their borders are fluent, which means that they stand in close relation to each other. The Customer Interaction Center could for example be the trigger for an initial entry in the Field Service Module. After a visit of the Field Service Worker at the Customers’ place there could be a demand for new products which would activate the Sales Force again. This simplified example still shows the circular workflow of the usage of CRM within a company. To provide a fundamental knowledge for the forthcoming chapters in my dissertation, I am going to work out the main ideas of these areas briefly.

Figure 1.2: CRM Applications

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

(Source: “An Executive’s Guide to CRM”, Patricia Seybold Group, 2002, p. 12)

1.2.1 Sales Force Automation

Sales Force Automation (SFA) is the big brother or the logical next step of former known contact management^[10]. It organizes day-to-day sales activities – such as contact management, notes, proposals, presentations, product information, pricing, calendars, and to-do lists, and integrates them into a comprehensive software package (CRM).^[11]

Common features of Sales Force Automation^[12]:

- Pipeline Visibility This is probably one of the main reasons why contact management changed into SFA, because of its ability to show the sales management the sales potential data in different views, like drill down by sales person, territory, time periode, or also product category based.
- Data central for consolidated sales information All customer, prospect and opportunity history, activity and sales information are available under a single record.
- Territory management To overcome the problems with business relations who span geographic boundaries, - which makes it difficult to determine which salesperson is responsible- territory management provides functionality to help in this case by automatically populating the right salespersons’ record with the information of the business relation.
- Forecasting capabilities Forecasting abilities out of a SFA provide the user with real-time^[13] data and can encompass an enormous amount of data points which secures data as accurate as the ones entered from sales people.
- Solid analytic tools, dashboards & reports Within the CRM system analytical tools are also necessary for SFA to provide overview about sales-provision, activity workflows and quotation levels. Dashboards should be included for every salesperson with individual information.
- Ms Outlook and Lotus Notes integration While working as a CRM-Consultant I recognized that a vital criteria for the decision of CRM System is its ability to synchronise Activities, Tasks, Appointments and Contact Persons with related Information. In order to guarantee a secure workflow without redundant data, the CRM System is the host for managing the synchronisation. This option helps Sales Force and other employees who are partially disconnected from the intranet, to have relevant information about customers and other business relations with them whilst travelling.
- Mobile Applications To fulfil customers’ requirements while being outside the company, the salesperson uses mobile applications to receive the enquired information. (E.g. Credit-Information, Paying-Information, Contract-Information, Product-Availability etc.).^[14]
- Proposal and quote systems This is to handle and send quotations and proposal offers to prospective and customers, but also in order to provide forecasting data for production, material planning as well as data for periodic business forecasts in general.

With process-focused CRM and especially its sales-force-related tools, the former negative side of CRM approaches, where salespersons recognized the benefits of such tools only partially, has to be eliminated by including the above mentioned features to provide a fully satisfying application compendium to a company’s sales force.

1.2.2 Enterprise Marketing Management

Marketing tools offered by CRM-solutions are nowadays either called “Enterprise Marketing Automation” (EMA), - which already gives insights not only for customer-records, but to all business relations involved in the entire enterprise, or “Enterprise Marketing Management” (EMM), which is the latest approach towards the evolution of the customer ecosystem. The second one mentioned is again a more strategic approach in terms of campaigning, analyzing and marketing operations, which remained the core focus in the marketing area of CRM. Table 1.2.2 shows a comparison of the elements of EMA and EMM. Since EMM is more complex then EMA, there is no direct correlation between the rows.

Table 1.2.2: Comparison EMA vs. EMM

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

(Source:Greenberg, 2004, p. 123)

Even though the fact that Enterprise Marketing Management provides more features then the Enterprise Marketing Automation, EMA is still the more common name and also used process in CRM-solution, because of the reason that the complexity of real EMM also needs some time to make its way into Companies – big players as well as mid-sized ones.^[15]

1.2.3 Partner Relationship Management

Partner Relationship Management (PRM) has become a very debatable process within customer- and partner-channel professionals. Through the change from a data-driven to a process-driven system in the CRM solution market, this category of CRM is a core business need of a company’s strategy, hence business environment involves more then a customer and prospect range. In January 2002 Karen E. Smith, senior analyst at Aberdeen Group, predicted that in some sense PRM will become a victim of its own success. "As it acquires more functionality and moves into the mainstream," she says, "that only increases the odds that it will become part of CRM vendors' products."^[16]

Common functions of PRM:

- Lead distribution management the first process within PRM, the generation and distribution of partner leads.
- Partner recruitment this function within PRM automates the workflow for the selection process to convert leads into partners.
- Training and certification to provide partner with essential information on products or services, the system helps to organise trainings and applies a certification level for each partner based on a predefined structure
- Contract management contracts made with partners depend on their training and certification level, the type of company they are and maybe other industry specific terms. PRM supports the tracking of these contracts^[17]

As an extended collaboration with partners and suppliers is nowadays a vital part of every companies strategy to receive a successful relationship with its customers, PRM can not be considered as a separate individual software product.^[18] It is moreover that part of CRM which makes it nowadays known as collaborative CRM.

1.2.4 Customer Interaction Center

The need for a 360° Degree view of a company’s business relations information is not only necessary for SFA and PRM it is moreover vital to provide this information regardless of the channel of communication when taking Customer Interaction Centers (CIC) into consideration. Such CIC’s are the second generation of former known Call Centers and are part of a CRM Front office technology. The communication channels can be split into technologies like Interactive Voice Response (IVR)^[19], Computer Telephony Integration (CTI)^[20], Automatic Call Distribution (ACD)^[21], Voice Speech Recognition, Automated Callback, Fax, e-mail and Web Chat Communication.

So called “Desktop Agents” allow the employee’s in CIC’s to receive an overview about the business relation it is in communication with, immediately and fully automated.

The CIC can be connected with the Enterprise Marketing Management to exercise telephone marketing campaigns. The history gained out of the different communication channels and telemarketing activities can be stored in the database and used for further analysis, reports but also for new marketing campaigns.^[22]

1.2.5 Field Service

Field Service extends across departments and involves cooperation between suppliers, vendors, employees, and partners to succeed.^[23]

Common features of Field Service:

- Contract Management Includes service level agreements (SLA)^[24], warranty management, pricing and delivery. In order to assure renewals of warranties it is necessary to track warranty expirations with sufficient knowledge and time planning.
- Service Level Agreements Tracking SLA tracking is an important procedure in order to avoid revenue losses because of the commited servive level vs. price. Since business with customers is dynamic also SLA’s have to be adopted adequately.
- Dispatch and Scheduling This is one of the most serious factors in the Field Service tasks since it stands in close relation with cost effectiveness, profitability and customer satisfaction and retention. The system has to provide flexible operations and planning methods in order to reach efficient performance.
- Customer Relationships To equip the Field Service Worker with contact-specific information, the right parts to fix the problem in time and making him aware of the SLA that he is required to provide, it is necessary that the information needed is dynamically available.
- Inventory, Logistics and Parts Planning To assure that the technician is at the customer’s place with the right equipment and parts, the functionality of inventory, logistics and part planning should include the managing of shipping- and receiving costs, automated parts replenishment and effective parts ordering.
- Remote Diagnostics Information from supporting remote diagnostic tools and software is being made available within the customer’s request and service history.

Field Service Workers make 28 percent of all mobile workers according to a study done by Yankee Group in 2002, another statement in this study is the following: “The Yankee Group predicts that over 2 million U.S. field service workers will use software solutions that combine wireless data capabilities by 2008. US revenues associated with wireless field service solutions will increase from $ 700 million in 2004 to more then $ 2 billion by 2006”.This statement is only for the U.S. market, however it is showing that the future predictions for wireless and mobile connectivity especially in the Field Service area will rise and can be used as a slightly risky prediction for the European market as well.

1.3 Influences of Customer Relationship Management on a Business Strategy

Since CRM is involving more then just the sales- and marketing departments of a company it is clear that the decision to implement a CRM solution will effect the whole business strategy of a company. Every new software or product requires to change common behaviour in order to guarantee effective working with the new tool. In the case of a CRM solution these behaviours - most of the time - change substantial. Executives of company’s are willing to buy CRM software because they are willing to change and optimize their business processes – if not, they will not be able to improve or accelerate their workflows, instead they will try to adopt the CRM system in order to fulfil their conventional needs, which results in low ROI of the CRM initiative because the progress is too marginal.

1.3.1 The Benefits of Customer Relationship Management

A good implemented CRM system provides the company with a new layer of information, optimizes workflows and enables its user to react faster and more appropriate on external inquiries through customers, suppliers or other business units. In order to summarize the benefits occurring through “CRM-added-Strategies” the author is first going to illustrate the factors:

Figure 1.3.1: Benefits of a CRM Strategy

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

(Source: Author’s own illustration)

Cost Reduction and efficiency savings

CRM systems allow to successfully target segment customers by knowing their needs better which leads to the result that money and time is not spent on the wrong customer audience. (E.g. Merge Mailing to whole customer base in all existing and potential target segments)^[25]

Service Improvement / Added Value

Increased sales and revenue result from spending more time with customers, which results from spending less time for looking for needed information (E.g. productivity improvement). An increase in higher customer satisfaction and retention occurs because customers find the company to be more responsive and better in touch with their specific needs.

[...]

---

^[1] The definition of “fail” in this context is “not achieving the objectives set out in the program”.

^[2] Paul Greenberg „CRM at the Speed of Light“, 3rd Edition 2004, McGraw-Hill/Osborne, p.3

^[3] http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2902068,00.html
(downloaded 22/04/2005)

^[4] These studies are based on the statements of the interviewed Managers and were made without relation to measurable Return on Investment (ROI) ratios.

^[5] Paul Greenberg „CRM at the Speed of Light“, 3rd Edition 2004, McGraw-Hill/Osborne, p.8

^[6] Data driven CRM systems only concentrate on collecting and managing data with little attention on automation and streamline of business processes. http://www.infonet.it/process%20manager.html (downloaded 24/04/2005)

^[7] Process driven CRM systems are vertically focused and designed to deliver industry-specific functionality out of the box. http://www.intellibusiness.com/rdetail.asp?ID=743&sub_category=CRM (downloaded 24/04/2005); A more general description for process driven strategies has been made in a Business Insight Report: “A process-based system views the world from a process perspective – dynamically identifying and linking all the data and components needed to perform a defined business process. Its mode of operation is organized around business process automation and management, commonly based on distributed object architecture.” “The CRM Outlook”, J. Band, Business Insight, 2003. Downloaded from Reuters Database on 13/05/2005

^[8] Paul Greenberg, President of the Consulting Company „56 Group”, Author of “CRM at the Speed of Light”, Co-Chairman of the CRM Research Center at Rutgers University, member of the Board of Advisors of Baylor University's MBA CRM major

^[9] Customers make the choices of what to consume at low- or zero-cost. That means that companies must make sure their services are attractive enough, provide real quality and are fairly priced. http://www.axi.ca/TCA/Jan2004/crmcolumn.shtml (downloaded 24/04/2005)

^[10] Definition of „Contact Management“: “A procedure for managing contacts, either electronically or manually. It is a method of keeping information on people and tracking all activities and tasks connected to them.” http://www.organized-living.com/industryterms.html (downloaded 10/05/2005)

^[11] http://youth.itskillshub.com.au/starting_out/definitions/?id=21 (downloaded 10/05/2005)

^[12] „Optimizing Sales and Customer Service with Modular Customer Relationship Managemen” Enterprise White-Paper January 2005, Diamelle Technologies; http://whitepaper.informationweek.com/shared/write/collateral/WTP/50216_24305_33778_!QVM6MA00769WeCRM_1_2_b_White_Paper.pdf?ksi=978409&ksc=1214937278
(Downloaded 10/05/2005)

^[13] Within this content the author of this thesis refers to this definition of „real-time“ to: “Data that is captured, and made available as it is happening. Real time data reflects the latest status of the organization’s operational transaction data. Current moment in time. Real time refers to what is happening to any piece of data right now. For analysis, some people want to see current rather than historical data as is the case with most data warehouses.”

http://it.csumb.edu/departments/data/glossary.html (downloaded 11/05/2005)

^[14] „Mobile CRM Strategies“, http://crm.ittoolbox.com/pub/JP051502/JP051502.htm (downloaded 07/03/2005)

^[15] This summarizes the opinions of the survey respondents done through marketingprofs.com; http://www.marketingprofs.com/ea/qst_question.asp?qstID=1546 (downloaded 18/05/2005)

^[16] „Ready for PRM Time?“ S. Leibs, 2002; http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/3002814/c_3046513?f=insidecfo (downloaded 18/05/2005)

^[17] „PRM Success“ J. Cox, 2001; http://www.crm2day.com/library/EpyyFpEVVpipBddWzH.php (downloaded 18/05/2005)

^[18] „Collaborative CRM market“, T. Hickernell, Metagroup 2002; http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2862703,00.html (downloaded 18/05/2005)

^[19] Definition of IVR: links callers with information in databases. This technology allows callers to complete transactions or queries over the phone. Automatic speech recognition (ASR) is fast replacing the dual tone multifrequency (DTMF) method of activating IVR services and is one of the most important recent innovations in telephony-based self-service. http://www.mujo.com/glossary.cfm?TermID=282 (downloaded 18/05/2005)

^[20] Definition of CTI: The technology that links the computer, telephone and other services such as voice messaging and fax. CTI improves the handling of the customer relationship. For example, customer details can be on screen while an agent answers the call. http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/toolbox/demosites/series3/317/resources/glossary/gls_idx.htm (downloaded 18/05/2005)

^[21] Definition of ACD: a phone call workflow which allows – mostly in connection wit case-based-reasoning - to route a call based on the defining characteristics of the call.

^[22] „The CIC Advantage“, Starski & Arnold, http://www.destinationcrm.com/articles/default.asp?ArticleID=1020 (downloaded 18/05/2005)

^[23] Paul Greenberg „CRM at the Speed of Light“, 3rd Edition 2004, McGraw-Hill/Osborne, p.197

^[24] Definition of SLA: These are agreements between suppliers and customers, or between operating units of a company, to provide business services under specific terms. Whether explicit or implied, SLAs form the basis of all operating aspects of a company. Failure to deliver on known or unknown SLA commitments cause chaos within companies. http://www.nexbridge.com/ (downloaded 18/05/2005)

^[25] Cp. „The Handbook of KCRM“, K. Burnett, 2002, Pearson Education